


The held breath

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Psychological Torture, Angst, Gen, Gondolin, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:19:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5798578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Turgon + Maeglin + "breathe again"</p>
            </blockquote>





	The held breath

“I know you may think me selfish, Maeglin” Turgon was saying, as they stood side by side upon the rocky outcrop, the wind lifting their hair, blowing their clothes about them. “I know it is unfair to hold you within the city… and I would not do so. You’ve helped so much, the work the House of the Mole does is indispensable and essential to Gondolin’s functioning, so many have told me…” he hesitated, letting the silence hang in the turbulent air between them. 

Maeglin knew Turgon well enough to know that that was not the end of the sentence. 

“But…”

 _Right on cue_ , thought Maeglin bitterly. 

“But, I have to tell you, nephew…” Turgon was wringing his hands before him. “I fear for you, out in the mountains. The Eagles cannot see all dangers that may befall you…”

 _Eagles were wheeling overhead, that day when black clawed hands took Maeglin. The Eagles were even as they were now, circling high in the bright mountain air_ …

“I have never been… entirely comfortable with you leaving the city, you must know. After your mother…”

Maeglin was having trouble concentrating on what his uncle was saying. _Black hands, arms like bands of iron tightening about his chest, a black cell too small for him to stand or moving in, choking the very breath from him like a tomb_ …

Turgon sighed, laying the white niphredil he had brought from the gardens upon Aredhel’s tombstone, before going to kneel before the stone cairn of Fingolfin, bowing his head in respect. Maeglin’s awareness of the present was just enough to know that he was expected to do the same, and he did, moving mechanically. 

His mind, after all, was not there; it was, in many senses, far off still, in the black north. 

“I… I don’t know what I would do if you were taken from me too” Turgon was saying, his voice cracking a little, even as he laid a golden elanor blossom upon the new stone he had had inscribed with his eldest brother’s name, after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Fingon was not buried there, of course. _He was somewhere under the hill of orc carcasses, the blackness pressing in, and Maeglin knew blackness, oh how well he knew it, the choking dark_ …

“But whenever you return to the city, I…” the words seemed to be costing Turgon much, as he placed a blue forget-me-not blossom upon Argon’s memorial stone. “…it’s as though I can breathe again.”

They were standing in front of Elenwë’s memorial stone now, a statue carved from the living rock. Turgon had no more flowers now, his hands empty. He closed his eyes, laying one hand against her stone cheek and bowing his head for a long, long moment, before turning to Maeglin. “I fear, nephew” Turgon said, meeting Maeglin’s gaze, even as before Maeglin’s eyes flashed the leering faces of countless foul creatures, and then _him_ , the dark one, smiling indulgently, obscenely. _The pain in Maeglin’s chest, in every part of his body, until he thought that the agony alone would be enough to kill him. And yet it had not; release could never be that easy. Instead, Morgoth aimed to break the mind while keeping the body intact. People were more useful to him that way, Maeglin mused dully._

“Yes” said Maeglin, as he realised somewhere in the back of his mind that Turgon had spoken more words that he had missed. “Yes, I… I will do whatever you ask of me, my Lord.” He felt as though caught halfway between the worlds.

Turgon’s face broke out into a tentative, vulnerable smile, despite the flatness of Maeglin’s voice, his stumbling words. “Then you’ll be more careful in the future? Stay in the city, as far as you can?”

Maeglin nearly laughed then. _Well, what more is there that can happen to me? What more can they take?_  “I will.”

Turgon nodded. “I know that your freedom means… much to you. But Maeglin, I cannot bear to lose you too.”

 _Ah, he does not realise, I am long lost already. But none of us are long for this world in any case_. He gazed back at the city in sorrow as the wind stirred their hair, and Turgon stood at his side, lost in thought, his eyes wide open. Gondolin shone like a green jewel in the bright airs of a windy spring morning in the mountains.

Maeglin took it all in as though detached from himself, caught in a moment, in a place between the high air and the rocky peak. 

Overhead, eagles circled, their watch ceaseless. _They never miss a thing_ , Maeglin thought abstractly. _They would know. They would see. Conclusive proof that nothing of the one called Maeglin - called Lómion - ever returned, not really._

_Let my uncle have his hope; it will all be over soon._

The thought was strangely comforting. 


End file.
